Magical and unusual RPG weapon art

I’m looking to do some practice/honing of my illustration skill — I was hoping to get a couple interesting ideas out there that someone would enjoy seeing my interpretation of – particularly items like weapons or magical items, etc. Anyone interested? And as a (former) pen & paper/miniature gamer myself, I’m interested in hearing of the awesome loots you guys have designed for your own games.

As you can imagine plenty of gamers, including myself, leapt forward with suggestions. Less than a day later, shrcat had whisked up an impressive number of illustrations.

Whirlwind War Spear

From my poor description;

I’ve a DnD4 Dragonborn character very much inspired by Predator. He wields a “war spear” that I suppose might could as a halberd but I picture it as a two handed spear, with a wicked curved blade, and decorated with dangling threads of leather. He spins it around above his head, creating a whirlwind effect (visually, not actually) for intimidation.

The Raven’s Wing

How did the gamer, cpt_bluebear, describe this weapon;

I play a Paladin called Ullysses, The Raven Knight. He is an archer paladin who wields a bow that resembles a raven, the outstretched wings making the bow. I refer to it as the Ravens Wing. It is an undead bane bow and even though I have come across better bows through-out the campaign I always fight with this one. I just love it.

Silvered Fiery Runehammer of Gnomish Blasting

The story behind this mighty hammer?

A knight in one of my games was one of the only optimized characters in the group – he ended up having to be the tank, the striker, and half the time the rogue (is it trapped? SMASH BOOM crap yes it was!). Because of this, he took whatever advantage he could get to help the party out, but his intelligence wasn’t all that high so he took the direct approach.

His hammer had a tough time dealing with troll-hide and its regeneration, so he had a sorcerer imbue it with properties of flame so he could leave lasting damage (also handy as a backup torch).

It wasn’t punching through the armor of the mechanical golems, so a half-elf tinkerer let him stick explosive cartridges in the head and put a trigger on it, so once an encounter he could make it swing with a BOOM (also good as an impromptu lockpick).

For a while, the party faced werewolves. Nobody had any silvered weapons, so he took some looted silverware, held it over the hammer’s head and turned on the flames until it melted over the front. Half the time the poorly attached metal would splinter off in enemies, causing lasting silver poisoning. It also served as an improvised mirror to peek around corners.

So this weapon, that once was a regular, 25gp two-handed warhammer, now has a blasting plate in the back of the head with char marks from the explosive cartridges (and a small trigger near the handle), red glowing runes scribbled along the handle and poorly melted silver globbed over the front of the head. All of it badly burned, scratched and battered, with leather wrapped around the handle and falling off in strips.

It’s not an elegant tool for a more sophisticated age – it’s a fool’s genius turned to weapon form, but damn was it effective!

Weighted Bardiche

The artist’s talent was being recognised by this point. Here’s this weapon’s description;

A weighted bardiche. Basically it’s a bardiche but the butt is a ridged weight of considerable mass.

Edit: Looking at your work already, you’re awesome. I’d be very much obliged if you could do this for me, since I’m sure it’d be fantastic. If you’re looking for more elegant stuff, there’s a sword in one campaign of mine that is crafted from essentially waves and waves of mithril subjected to absurd pressure. I imagine it as white or gray, thin but not supple, held via a guard recessed into the hilt.

Yog-Sothothian Dimension Rift-Cutter

And this;

My Call of Cthulhu party has a (presumably) ancient dagger with an engraved copper blade and an ornate silver, gold and yak-horn hilt. The blade is about 6″ long and slightly curved forward (opposite direction of the way a scimitar would be carved).

The carvings and inlay on the hilt and blade would be Muvian and maybe Sanskrit appeals to Yog-Sothoth and His mastery over time and space. The dagger is enchanted to cut the barrier between worlds and summon a Dimensional Shambler when combined with the proper words and ritual, though the PC who knew the proper technique is long since dead.

Shaft of Healing Injection

The story of his odd looking thing;

My D&D (3rd) group has a magic tool for healing, since nobody enjoyed playing Clerics.

This weapon was described as a large (2 handed) mace type object. At the head of mace were three large globes filled with a magic blue liquid (the healin’ juice). Above each globe was a large, curved needle.

In order to heal another player, the healing player needed to swing the mace and stab the injured player. The mace would then inject some of the blue juices in the globe.

This item was meant to have sexual innuendo, and be tongue-in-cheek. It was also meant to be a bit oxymoronic, causing a large wound (the stabbing) to heal the player (No worries this mace is magic and will heal both the wound it causes and any damage to armor [that it causes only]).

Hecate’s Bite: Ring of the Ouroboros

Deeper down the busy reddit thread we find;

Hecate’s Bite: It’s a ring that is two snakes, a white and a black, intertwined. They meet at the middle and occasionally snap at one another, neither actually harming the other. They’re supposed to represent the Ouroboros. It’s an intelligent item, the White head is CG, and the Black is LE.

The artist has an old gallery on deviant art and Shrinecat has uploaded some of these pictures to there. Well worth watching.